Looking for landscaping ideas for a section of our front yard. The house faces east and gets full sun. I have just over 6ft from the house to the stone border. The entire area is about 25 feet long. We are in zone 6b. I’m looking for a mixture of shrubs and other perennials. I’m wondering if there should be a center piece plant right in the middle of the stone and then plants that are symmetrical as you move towards either end. Thoughts? Disregard the plants there now, will dig up and move them. Current perennials include hosta, dianthus and a few daffodils. We do plant a few annuals here like touch-me-nots and begonias.
by Bug3843
4 Comments
You are spot on with the symmetry idea. Your house facade is completely symmetrical with that heavy stone center column and matching windows, so the landscape needs to respect that architecture. Right now you have a polka dot garden with random little things plopped everywhere. We need sweeping connected masses to ground that heavy stone and siding.
Put a tight upright evergreen right in the dead center of that stone column to act as your focal point. A Hicks Yew or a Taylor Juniper will give you vertical structure without eating up your entire six foot depth. Then anchor the two outside corners under the windows with matching evergreen shrubs like rounded boxwoods or dwarf blue spruce to frame it out. That gives you a permanent winter skeleton so you arent looking at bare mulch half the year.
Good call moving the hostas because full sun against that hot stone wall will bake them crisp by July. Fill the space between your new evergreens with large sweeping drifts of sun loving perennials. Plant a massive drift of catmint or native little bluestem grasses. You want them to flow together into one single texture that spills slightly over that stone border to soften all the hard lines of the concrete and masonry.
Purple beach in the center would be amazing
Id put a smaller red Japanese maple in between the windows, then try to put 2-3 layers of plants on either side. Looks like you have about 3 ft to the bottom of the windows so shoot for evergreen shrubs that you can maintain at that level in the back layer, and then perennials, annuals, etc in the front layer. Something like small boxwoods, inkberry, holly, etc. in the back for all year color and as a nice back drop to a more colorful from layer eg azaleas, grasses, pieris, annuals. I’d go to a local nursery for ideas for the evergreens and perennials. Then cross shop big box stores if you decide on common varieties they carry much cheaper. Perfect time of year to shop.
Am confused by a house facing east getting full sun. Last I knew the sun rises in the east, gets morning sun. Sun all afternoon, southern exposure.